The London Blasts: Media Review

DAY 86: 1 October 2005

Contents

Repression - Heckling

Realism - Bourke

Public Intellectuals

Realism - Fisk's New Book

REPRESSION - HECKLING ETCETERA

The Walter Wolfgang incident continues to get coverage. Ruth Walter and Natasha Walter point out in a letter to the Guardian that Labour hecklers have had worse treatment in the past: anarchist author and activist Nicolas Walter was arrested in 1966 for heckling Harold Wilson, and was jailed for two months - under pre-Blair legislation.

Mr Wolfgang is meeting Liberty, the human rights group, to discuss 'the possibility of a judicial review into his detention under the Terrorism Act.' More details of this have emerged:

'A police spokeswoman said that Mr Wolfgang had not been arrested but detained because his security accreditation had been cancelled by Labour officials when he was ejected. She said: "The delegate asked the police officer what powers he was using. The police officer responded that he was using his powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act to confirm the delegate’s details." ' (Times, page 35)

Mr Wolfgang has also been offered the services (free of charge) of one of Britain's leading anti-terrorism lawyers, who is currently acting on behalf of the US Government in the extradition case against Abu Hamza. (Times, page 35) He's also been invited to lunch by the party chairperson, Ian McCartney. (Telegraph, page 4, apparently not online)

REALISM - BOURKE

History professor Joanna Bourke, author of Fear: A Cultural History, has some realist advice in the Guardian (page 28). Note the second paragraph in particular:

'The great paradox of this new form of warfare is that our survival depends as much upon our response to our own political leaders as on our response to the terrorists themselves. Political activism today involves ensuring that our governments don't undermine the very values we are defending. If fear induces British citizens to allow our government to introduce progressively repressive legislation, we have slid off our moral high ground and into the same abyss inhabited by the terrorist.'

'What happened in New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid and London should not happen anywhere - including Basra, Kabul and Palestine. Indeed, ensuring it does not happen there will help prevent it happening here.' (Emphasis in the original, but not online)

 

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS

There is another absurd 'best of' list competition starting, for the top public intellectual in the world. It's being run by Prospect magazine and the journal Foreign Policy. Noam Chomsky is apparently way ahead with 14,000 votes. The idea is to find public intellectuals who have shown distinction in their own fields along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate outside of them. The vote is here. (We voted for Chomsky.)

'Candidates must have been alive, and still active in public life. This list is about public influence, not intrinsic achievement.'

You can also nominate someone you think should be on the top 100 list. We've nominated Osama bin Laden, not ironically, but quite seriously. Bin Laden's thinking is moral and political poison. His thought and his efforts have led to immense suffering and death on several continents, and they have set back the cause of the Third World in general, never mind the cause of oppressed Muslim populations around the world.

Nevertheless, he is probably the most influential 'thinker' of our time, whose ideas inspire a growing number of Muslims around the world. If the Western world is going to put an end to the al-Qaeda insurgency, we must, as Michael Scheuer says in his book of the same name, see the world Through Our Enemies' Eyes, and take their measure.

When we do so, we find that bin Laden has influence because of the world that the West has made and continues to maintain.

We had this quote from Scheuer, the former CIA bin Laden expert, way back on 26 July:

'I think the Islamists are winning the war hands down, at least in terms of the United States. Our politicians - either because they're ignorant or they're not willing to tell the truth - continue to tell the American people that this war is aimed at our liberties and our freedoms and our election system and our quest for gender equality, when that has really almost nothing to do with it.'

'Until the American pepole are squared with, and our President - whether Democrat or Republican - says, "They're mad at our policies in the Islamic world, and the impact those policies have", you have to say America is losing, simply because we haven't taken the measure of our enemy.'

 

REALISM - FISK'S NEW BOOK

Robert Fisk has a new book coming out, and it's being serialised in the Independent. The first installment deals with his various interviews with Osama bin Laden, and it's in the Independent Magazine. There are excerpts from the interviews, and some accompanying details - including bin Laden's veiled invitation to Fisk to come over to al-Qaeda!

The interviews contain the standard bin Laden analysis of 'American behaviour against Muslims, its support of Jews in Palestine and of the massacres of Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon - of Sabra and Chatila and Qana - and of the Sharm el-Sheikh conference'. This list of crimes is the rationale offered for the Khobar bombings in 1996).

The first mention of a US 'crusade' against Muslims comes in relation to the sanctions on Iraq:

'When 60 Jews are killed inside Palestine [a Palestinian suicide bombing inside Israel] all the world gathers within seven days to criticise this action, while the deaths of 600,000 Iraqi children [by economic sanctions] did not receive the same action. Killing those Iraqi children is a crusade against Islam. We, as Muslims, do not like the Iraqi regime but we think that the Iraqi people and their children are our brothers and we care about their future.'

The sanctions on Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, were part of the background to the al-Qaeda insurgency. The anti-sanctions movement, unknowingly, was a counter-terrorist movement, trying to remove one of the grievances that fuels al-Qaeda. The anti-war movement, coincidentally, is a counter-terrorist movement, trying to remove one of the grievances that fuels al-Qaeda.

JNV welcomes feedback.